Creationist Glenn Beck Calls Noah Film Dangerous Disinformat

Yes, I am posting an article about this film, Noah, in the R&S section.  It is, after all, a religious film, and deserves a chance to be looked at and maybe discussed in this forum.  Besides, it goes beyond the title to present a perspective on the Bible and its sources that is an important part of any and all Biblical discussions.  Might be kind of interesting to get a thread going on the whole "J," "E," "P," and "D," texts of Genesis concepts in general.

Quote :

Creationist Glenn Beck Calls Noah Film Dangerous Disinformation

It is kind of funny to watch figures on the Religious Right react to Darren Aronofsky’s Noah movie, which is due out on March 28, complaining that it is unbiblical. Rick Warren got on Twitter on March 16 and misquoted Aronofsky, tweeting,
Director of new ‘Noah’ movie calls it ‘The LEAST biblical film ever made’ then uses F word referring to those wanting Bible-based (entertainment).

This is factually untrue, as even the Christian Post admitted.

Glenn Beck is offended too; he said he won’t see it because it’s “dangerous disinformation.”

Beck complains that if everyone takes their church and goes to see the film, “our children will look at that as being the Noah story.” And, “They will believe this version over the version that mommy and daddy are telling them, or that old dusty Bible is telling them.”

But, which Noah story in the Bible, Mr. Beck? There are already two competing Noah stories found in Genesis 6-9, the “P” text and the “J” text; what harm is there in a third? And why so much fuss over this? There are already so many practical difficulties with the story(s) of the flood found in Genesis:

Incest and the scientific absurdities aside, these are at least as serious as the differences between Aronofsky’s film and the Bible:

When did the flood begin? The day Noah entered the ark or seven days later (compare (Gen 7:7, 10 and Gen 7:11-13);
Contradictory instructions issued to Noah regarding which critters to bring: In one of the stories (Genesis 6), Noah has a male and female of each animal species but the other story (Genesis 7) has seven pairs of each species of those that can be sacrificed to YHWH (“clean” beasts) and two pairs of all the others;
Flood lasts two different periods of time: did it last 40 days and 40 nights with an additional 40 days for the waters to recede, or did it last for 150 days?;
In one story, God is referred to as elohim (“God”), and in the other, by his name, YHWH;
Did Noah release 3 doves or a single raven? (Gen 8:8-12 or Gen 8:7?);
Did it rain as one of the stories has it? Or was the firmament (the place the Bible says humans live between the waters above and below) broken by God (the “apertures of the skies” and the “fountains of the great deep”), as the other story claims?
You would think that Beck’s belief, contrary to all observable fact that the earth floats in the emptiness of space, above and below, and not sandwiched between two layers of water, would be enough to make his attacking somebody for peddling “dangerous disinformation” egregious enough. But let’s not beat a dead horse.

So what about the difference between Bible’s mish-mash of flood stories and film’s single, coherent vision? Well, for one thing, the LA Times says Aronofsky’s version is “fuller” than the “brief” biblical versions. That’s true. If you stick to the Bible’s two flood stories, and even assuming you overcome the contradictions, there just isn’t enough material to make a film.

But a problem that goes unmentioned by both Warren and Beck is that there is an even older flood story, that is, a Sumerian version in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Two different types of boat are build in the Sumerian and Jewish stories of the ark. And we also now have the so-called “Ark tablet” which tells how to build a third type of ark – an ark that is a very Mesopotamian “coracle” (still used in Iran and Iraq today) – and nothing like the ship-shaped ark (longer than it is broad) described in one of the two Genesis versions of the story.

Jennifer Connelly, who plays Noah’s wife Naameh, told Good Morning America last Thursday that,

What you’ll find is that the controversy that was generated [was] by people who were speculating [and] hadn’t seen the film yet, for the most part. We’re now getting feedback from religious leaders who have seen the film and are really embracing it and supporting it.

We already know Bill Maher’s conclusions regarding the “spirit” expressed by the biblical flood stories differ from Warren’s and Beck’s. You cannot harmonize a “psychotic murder” God with a “loving and forgiving” God.

Or can you?

All this really seems much like the old arguments over which stories, events, and characters represents Star Wars canon. Of course, Disney has now made all Star Wars material equal, even when it is contradictory, and there is precedent for this in the Bible as well, both Old and New Testament. We have already seen how Jewish writers made competing creation stories and flood stories into a consistent narrative, pretending it all works if you just ignore the contradictions. And Christian writers have done the same in the Gospels, taking four contradictory accounts of Jesus’ life, teachings, and especially death, and pretending the contradictions don’t exist.

Probably the best solution is for each to stick to his or her preferred version. I don’t read Star Wars stories I don’t like. Similarly, I prefer the old, original Sumerian flood to the later Jewish flood, in part because nobody is trying to force me to believe it, and those who like the film should be content to pretend the biblical versions don’t exist. Those who like the biblical flood stories can go back to pretending there is only one biblical flood story and avoid seeing the film.

In the end, everyone can be happy, and as they do with Jesus, have the flood most amenable to them.
https://www.politicususa.com/2014/03/23/creationist-glenn-beck-calls-noah-film-dangerous-disinformation.html

Biblical disagreements and films are far to polarizing and require an intelligence beyond emotion that most people don't have in order to look at different versions and different facts in light of the "one true Bible dictated from God."

Thus, I stay clear of most of those discussions.  I see any movie as theater.  I mean, how many novelists see their precious stories exactly reflected on the screen?  How many movies based on truth are exaggerated in order to hold an audience at all - since real life is slow and boring with moments of chaos and excitement?

One thing for certain, controversy still drums up attendance and that can't hurt the film.  I think the churches should load up their bus and use the film as a teaching moment, a moment to expand minds and make comparisons and contrasts and ask questions about why the film treated the story in the way it did.

Many of my visions of biblical characters are shaped by the movies I saw.  I read or hear the Bible story and I see movie stars.  Is that so wrong?  It's just another person's interpretation of what they read put into terms that sell movie tickets.  A story is under it all, a story that is part of the Jewish and Christian heritage that has shaped many of our beliefs, warts and all, over time.

Yes.

I do think that Aronofsky took this "job" very seriously. He first came across this particular story as a boy raised in a traditional Jewish family. The childen's version was a particular favorite. Today, his outlook is much more inclusive and progressive, but he has honored those traditions. He has been working on this concept for over a decade. He has gone beyond the Biblical version to include elements from the Pseudographia, from the Gnostic Book of Enoch, and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh to recreate a mythical story that has its roots in a universal mythology that pre-existed the Biblical version.

The author of this article seemed to be well versed in Biblical scholarship. As I mentioned, I would be eager to see more discussion here concerning the different sources for the Genesis material, especially involving the JEPD theories, not just about this story, but for Genesis in general.

Do Aronofsky and Paramount want to make a profit? Of course, and as DK said, the controversy will probably help more than it hurts.

In the end, its success or failure as a film will come down to how well they did the job. The word so far seems to be that they did that job quite well. My feeling is that it will be a significant film on several levels.

We haven't always seen that in Biblical movies.

I went to college as a freshman fresh out of Southern Baptist teaching.  My first semester, the professor of my "Seminars in world thought" class read what I believed was from Genesis regarding the birth of the World.  How shocked I was to learn that it came from ancient mythology long before.  That was not the last of the passages that included comparative references.

Many of the Biblical reflections on historical events have that previous mythical context incorporated in their presentation.  Perhaps the writers, too, wanted an interested audience and "borrowed" bits to enhance their presentation.

There are many people who go to churches on sunday and imbibe the particular speakers interpretation as truth.  The number of funerals that I have been to that depict the departed as walking on golden street pavers and wearing wings is astounding. 
I cannot even imagine that I would be in that throng.  I would rather be soaring into unlimited space and knowledge.  Like Annie says, "Just Me."
Love,
Betty

dkchristi wrote:

I went to college as a freshman fresh out of Southern Baptist teaching.  My first semester, the professor of my "Seminars in world thought" class read what I believed was from Genesis regarding the birth of the World.  How shocked I was to learn that it came from ancient mythology long before.  That was not the last of the passages that included comparative references.

Many of the Biblical reflections on historical events have that previous mythical context incorporated in their presentation.  Perhaps the writers, too, wanted an interested audience and "borrowed" bits to enhance their presentation.

Probably.  Especially with the stories, like this one, that have an archetypal significance.  Flood stories are univerdal.

Western culture is deeply entrenched in this material, whether we are conscious of it or not.  I wonder if our being at what seems to be a pivotal point in time has anything to do with the high number of Biblical films coming out right now.

I'm also very curious to see what Ridley Scott does with his take on the Moses story.  I understand that it will be called Exodus, and that Christian Bale will be playing Moses.  Scott's films tend to be very well filmed.

Betty Fasig wrote:

There are many people who go to churches on sunday and imbibe the particular speakers interpretation as truth.  The number of funerals that I have been to that depict the departed as walking on golden street pavers and wearing wings is astounding. 
I cannot even imagine that I would be in that throng.  I would rather be soaring into unlimited space and knowledge.  Like Annie says, "Just Me."
Love,
Betty

I like that this forum is clled Religion and Spirituality. They seem to be two different things. Religion seems to literslize the myth.

Just me, too

I have yet to see the movie, so I can’t make comment on it. I’m sure the writers intertwined fact, and fiction. After all, how else could you write it?

In 1993 I did a drawing of the arch based on figures given in the Bible. It looked like a big long box. It had no bow, or stern like a ship, after all, it only had to float.

The Bible tell of event leading up to the flood. It gives no size of the creatures they took onboard…I’m sure they were young rather than full grown.

The flood came within 40 days, and stayed on the surface for one year. Much happened during that year. It is expressed in the Bible in terms that one has to dig to see clear. One event took me over five years to understand. One of Noah’s sons un-covered Noah’s nakedness. If this is read in the Hebrew, it means, “Had sex with Noah’s wife.” I don’t know if that is in the movie.

I have been writing Clay of the Gods for some twenty years. I took all the facts, and in-between wrote what the people may have done…after all, they were just people.

Almost all the Big Bible movies of the past were by such movie makers as, C. B. DeMills, who was Jewish. Movies about Jesus, etc. I used to wonder about this since Jews don’t believe in Jesus?

The people in the Bible were all people like you, and me. They past wind, got hungry, cold, upset…all the things we feel. I feel it’s okay to write fiction into a Bible story, as long as the main points are pictured as described.

I like to see movies based on the Bible to see how others see the events.

After Noah learned what one of his sons had done, I’m sure the events on the ark were not good. One thing is clear, after the flood Noah had no more children…he probably didn’t have anything to do with his wife after that.

When writers of the future write about our time, I’m sure they will jazz it up.

This Empire review discusses te religious perspective:

Quote :

Plot
The world after the fall from Paradise is corrupt, wicked and in decline, held in thrall by Tubal-cain (Winstone), descendant of the first murderer. But Noah (Crowe), of the righteous line of Seth, receives a vision from the Creator: the world will be cleansed and all its creatures - mankind aside - must be saved.


Review

It is not very often that a movie like Noah comes along: something mounted on a massive scale, employing the full arsenal of a big studio event, but which remains the unmodified fruit of a singular filmmaker's creative passion. Who does Darren Aronofsky think he is? Christopher Nolan?

Of course he doesn't. Nolan, by whichever fiendishly brilliant algorithm that lurks in that perpetual-motion subconscious, has refined his own crowd-wowing formula — oft-imitated, not yet bettered. Aronofsky flickers and changes form, expanding, contracting and adapting his style to his chosen story, which always has something heavily personal at its core and is never modulated to broaden its appeal. He is an auteur who appears to take pride in his assertion (untrue) that no individual could like all of his six films thus far, from the monochromatic migraine Pi, via his surprise-hit ballet-horror Black Swan ($330 million worldwide!), to this astonishing, semi-biblical epic that he's been hankering to execute his entire professional life.

You can see why Paramount got cold feet during the edit and tinkered with its own cuts. Thankfully, Aronofsky's version won out — one which dares to challenge its 12A audience and requires us to embrace some bristly contradictions.

In one magnificent sequence, Noah (Russell Crowe) relates the story of creation while Aronofsky employs aeons-spanning time-lapse to present a strobing vision of Darwinian evolution: the first splitting cell to Adam and Eve — several billion years in seven days in a few minutes of intelligent design.

In the beginning, we are presented a prediluvian world which feels post-apocalyptic. The voracious, rapacious spawn of Cain have hollowed the world, building cities, digging mines, hunting forgotten species to extinction. There is even technology of a kind, powered by divinely glowing and explosive material. Meanwhile, beneath a sky dotted with huge, young stars, Noah and his tiny clan eke out a humble, desperate existence amid deforested wastelands marred by puddles of greenly toxic effluence. It is our worst ecological nightmare.

We are also presented a main character who is both protagonist and antagonist, and therefore perfectly cast in the intimidating, dour and burly form of Russell Crowe. Initially, Noah is saviour: a man who unites with fallen angels, known as Watchers, that are now twisted, multi-limbed giants encrusted in rock and magma, and welcomes even the slithering things into his 300-cubit-long, Watcher-constructed coffin, gently sedating the animals with a soporific incense. Yet he is also an accomplice in the implacable Creator's genocide: just following orders as he allows an innocent young girl, with whom his middle son Ham (Logan Lerman) is besotted, to die violently — soon joined by the wailing multitudes clinging in dread to the diminishing peak beside his unwelcoming ark, their screams falling on Noah's deaf ears. Furthermore, as the storm subsides and the ark bobs about, he terrorises his own family, having become the epitome of patriarchal tyranny through his belief that even Seth's line should not survive the great cleansing. Nominal bad guy Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) has a point when he observes that Noah "fills this ship with beasts while letting children drown".

While there are moments of wonder and creative spectacle, it does make for intense and difficult viewing, a far cry from the sappy Sunday school take on these verses from Genesis. For which we are truly thankful.:

Verdict

Inventive, ambitious, brutal and beautiful: a potent mythological epic. But also wilfully challenging, as likely to infuriate as inspire, whether through its unmitigated Old Testament harshness or its eco-message revisionism. If only more blockbusters were like this.

4/5 stars

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

I have yet to see the movie, so I can’t make comment on it. I’m sure the writers intertwined fact, and fiction. After all, how else could you write it?

In 1993 I did a drawing of the arch based on figures given in the Bible. It looked like a big long box. It had no bow, or stern like a ship, after all, it only had to float.

The Bible tell of event leading up to the flood. It gives no size of the creatures they took onboard…I’m sure they were young rather than full grown.

The flood came within 40 days, and stayed on the surface for one year. Much happened during that year. It is expressed in the Bible in terms that one has to dig to see clear. One event took me over five years to understand. One of Noah’s sons un-covered Noah’s nakedness. If this is read in the Hebrew, it means, “Had sex with Noah’s wife.” I don’t know if that is in the movie.

I have been writing Clay of the Gods for some twenty years. I took all the facts, and in-between wrote what the people may have done…after all, they were just people.

Almost all the Big Bible movies of the past were by such movie makers as, C. B. DeMills, who was Jewish. Movies about Jesus, etc. I used to wonder about this since Jews don’t believe in Jesus?

The people in the Bible were all people like you, and me. They past wind, got hungry, cold, upset…all the things we feel. I feel it’s okay to write fiction into a Bible story, as long as the main points are pictured as described.

I like to see movies based on the Bible to see how others see the events.

After Noah learned what one of his sons had done, I’m sure the events on the ark were not good. One thing is clear, after the flood Noah had no more children…he probably didn’t have anything to do with his wife after that.

When writers of the future write about our time, I’m sure they will jazz it up.

Good post,Domenic.

I had come across the interpretation you mentioned concerning incest.  The Hebrew language, especially at that time, had many expressions that were ambiguous and could be translated many ways.   That's one of the reasons it's impossible to consider the material as "factual."  When you read the entire passage, that interpretation seems  contradictory in the context of the whole, it seems to me.  I'm not sure how the film will handle Noah's drunkeness, but I'm sure it wasn't left out.

I would like to see how they made the rain? Scientist who claim there was a world flood, say large cracks came in the earths crest, and the land fell, forcing the underground water high into the sky, which fell back as heavy rain. Before the flood, they had no rain. A mist would rise up from the ground in the morning, and water the earth. After a year, most of the water went back under the crest of the earth.
Science also says there were clouds high above the earth that held out harmful rays from the sun...this also fell as rain. Mans life span dropped in half after that, and has been going down since.
The book of Enoic, which was written before the flood, told of the coming event of the flood. The book of Enoic told of life before the flood. In is on the net in English. I don't know why it is not a part of the Bible. In Jesus day it was a part of the scrolls both Jews, and Christians read.

I am not familiar with a book of Enoic.  The book that I referenced, which contained references to the story of Noah, and which was used as a reference by the creators of the film, was called the Book of Enoch. The oldest parts of the Book of Enoch were written down in the 3rd or 4th century BC - thousands of years after the time attributed to the great flood. It was not a prophecy.

Wikipedia has a good summary of what the Book of Enoch was about, where it came from, and why it was not canonical:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch

alj wrote:

I am not familiar with a book of Enoic.  The book that I referenced, which contained references to the story of Noah, and which was used as a reference by the creators of the film, was called the Book of Enoch.  The oldest parts of the Book of Enoch were written down in the 3rd or 4th century BC - thousands of years after the time attributed to the great flood.  It was not a prophecy.

Wikipedia has a good summary of what the Book of Enoch was about, where it came from, and why it was not canonical:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch

Wikipedia says:
"The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch^[1]) is an ancient Jewish religious work, traditionally ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah."

Noah's great grandfather, Enoch was not on the ark, thus what he wrote had to be pre-flood.
Since he wrote it before the great flood, it had to be a prophecy.
The book of Enoch is a part of the scrolls the Bible was taken from, and also are a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Yes, copies of parts of the Book of Enoch were among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of the fragments date back to 300-400 BCE, again, thousands of years after the Pre-diluvian period, which cannot be dated precisely. We are dealing with pre-history here. There were no written records. Anything we say about that time is speculation that cannot be proved. We have to rely on archaeology and mythology to get any kind of feel for what was happening that long ago. And what we get is just that - a feel. There is no certainty.

According to the Documentary Hypothesis, more commonly known as J, E, D & P, the oldest source for the material in the Pentateuch was probably the Yawist epic which dates back to about 950 BCE, which was around the time of Solomon. The Genesis stories derive from that source as well as from the Elohist and Priestly sources which probably dated from 100 to 300 years later, respectively. (The D source refers specifically to Deuteronomy.) Tradition holds that these 5 books were written by Moses, but it is highly unlikely that the Hebrews had a written language at that time - probably around 1300 to 1400 BCE. The earliest written version of those 5 books was probably a compilation of the four sources (JEDP) that can be separated linguistically and account for most of the discrepancies and contradictions in the books as we know them today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

There is no way to prove or disprove pre-historical material, which was originally handed down orally. The oral tradition is just that - tradition.

My perspective, based on years of research including this particular hypothesis, so again, just me.

What leads you to believe they had no written language during the pre-flood? It has been proven they had more than we have today. The book of Enoic tells us what the angels who came down to earth gave to man.
Here is a site you may find of interest.

OOPARTS

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

What leads you to believe they had no written language during the pre-flood? It has been proven they had more than we have today. The book of Enoic tells us what the angels who came down to earth gave to man.
Here is a site you may find of interest.

OOPARTS

As in Out-0f-Place ARTifactS?

They've been around for a long time, but they hardly constitute proof.

Sorry, Domenic, but you are not going to be able to convince me that there is any proof that we can - or should - read the bible as literal history, no matter which version is intended.

Just me again.

alj wrote:

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

What leads you to believe they had no written language during the pre-flood? It has been proven they had more than we have today. The book of Enoic tells us what the angels who came down to earth gave to man.
Here is a site you may find of interest.

OOPARTS

As in Out-0f-Place ARTifactS?

They've been around for a long time, but they hardly constitute proof.  

Sorry, Domenic, but you are not going to be able to convince me that there is any proof that we can - or should - read the bible as literal history, no matter which version is intended.

Just me again.

Let me repeat what I posted on the thread, "Religion is changing."

" I am not on a mission to change anyone. I would be more successful flying by flapping my ears, then change a persons  theories by flapping my lips."

You always go 180 from whatever I post...it is your nature. On the subject of the Bible, you have placed yourself out on left field...believe what you will.

From an interview with director Darren Aronofsky in The Atlantic:

Quote :

www.theatlantic.com

The 'Terror' of Noah: How Darren Aronofsky Interprets the Bible

The controversial director talks about his lifelong fascination with Noah's ark and why it's the messages of biblical stories—not the historical details—that matter.


......When [Noah is] taught to kids, it’s about the good man and his family. They don’t talk about the duality of original sin. What I think is the fascinating part of the story is the contradiction inherent in the story, which is that we are all descendants of original sin. Clearly, even if you subscribe to the idea that Noah is all good (which he’s not, he’s just righteous—which doesn’t mean good in theological terms, it means a balance of justice and mercy), why go through this act of destruction if the next story [in the Bible] is Babel, which is about how man’s hubris once again needs to be smited?

So, why go through this? What is the reason for it? To me, that’s what’s powerful about it. It’s meant as a lesson. It’s poetry that paints images about the second chance we’ve been given, that even though we have original sin and even though God’s acts are justified, He found mercy. There is punishment for what you do, but we have just kind of inherited this second chance. What are we going to do with it?

TA: When I was a kid, growing up Catholic in CCD, I was shown the picture books with the rainbow and the animals and the ark. But I couldn’t get my head around, first of all, why God would do that? It was terrifying. Or how they would repopulate the earth with just Noah, his wife, his three kids, and their wives... So your approach to the Noah story tapped into a really dark question I hadn’t thought about in probably 30 years: What kind of God would do that?

That's not the God of grace and mercy and love that I understand now. But that's part of the history and story. Right after the passage in Genesis that describes the destruction and the flood, God starts again and says, Well I won’t do that again, even though I understand that humans have a bent toward evil. So, was God having a bad day?

"When you talk about Icarus, you don’t talk about the feathers and wax. You talk about how he flew too high and was filled with hubris and it destroyed him. That’s the message and that's the power."
We constructed an entire film around that decision. The moment that it “grieved Him in his heart to destroy creation,” is, for me, the high dramatic moment in the story. Because think about it: It’s the fourth story in the Bible. You go from creation to original sin to the first murder and then time jumps to when everything is messed up. [The first three stories in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, are the creation, Adam and Eve, and the story of Cain and Abel, which is often referred to as “the first murder.”] The world is wicked. Wickedness is in all of our thoughts. Violence against man and against the planet.

And so it was so bad that He decides that He is going to destroy everything and destroy this creation. So what we decided to do was to align Noah with that character arc and give Noah that understanding: He understands what man has done, he wants justice, and, over the course of the film, learns mercy. What’s nice about that is that is how I think Thomas Aquinas defined righteousness: a balance of justice and mercy.

Ari [Handel] and I always talked about it in terms of being a parent: If you are too just with a child you destroy them with strictness. If you’re too merciful you can spoil them. Finding that balance is what makes you a good parent. So that was an interesting character arc for us to see......when you get to the end of the story and [Noah] gets drunk. That was a huge thing; they didn’t teach us that in CCD either, did they? What do we do with this? How do we connect this with this understanding? For me, it was obvious that it was connected to survivor’s guilt or some kind of guilt about doing something wrong.

I mean, to get that drunk—and not just drunk, but it's the first mention of wine in the Bible, which is incredibly significant—but to get so drunk that you’re naked and have a falling out with your child and curse them. That, for some reason, was held onto. That’s part of the story that stayed in there for all time. That’s a huge clue to what this whole story is about.

...."You get nonbelievers saying ‘That’s impossible, because all the species of the world would never all fit on the ark.’ But that’s the exact wrong argument, you know?"

I think it’s more interesting when you look at not just the biblical but the mythical that you get away from the arguments about history and accuracy and literalism. That’s a much weaker argument, and it’s a mistake.

Because when you think about Icarus, you don’t talk about the feathers and the wax and how the wax attached to his body and how is that physically possible that he could fly with feathers on his arms. No. You’re talking about how he flew too high and was filled with hubris and it destroyed him. That’s the message and that’s the power. ... But when you’re talking about a pre-diluvian world—a pre-flood world—where people are living for millennia and centuries, where there were no rainbows, where giants and angels walked on the planet, where the world was created in seven days, where people were naked and had no shame, you’re talking about a universe that is very, very different from what we understand. And to portray that as realistic is impossible. You have to enter the fantastical. The Leviathan in the sea. It’s a different understanding of the world, and that’s OK. That’s not dangerous.

I think after the flood and after the Babel story, [the Bible] becomes more historical. I think the Abraham story is historical. And I think Moses is basically a slave-uprising document. And of course Jesus lived in recent history. But you’re talking about what’s described in the Bible in the Tower of Babel—people building a tower to the sky that went past the sun. I mean, it’s just very strange to argue about these things when it doesn’t matter.

Not being literal doesn’t detract from the power of the biblical story. It actually inspires it. I mean, you’re not going to cut the Cyclops out if you’re making a movie about The Odyssey, just because it didn’t exist. No. It’s one of the coolest things about that story. The cleverness of getting it drunk and blinding it. There are ideas in there that mean things and make it powerful enough to tell the story over and over again. The strength is in the making it into myth and legend.


The tree of life/tree of knowledge theme [is] an image that I think is so powerful. The idea of what separates us from the divine is those two trees. It’s a great idea. If you look at is as a metaphor for how we’re separate from the animal kingdom, it’s also interesting. Clearly we’ve taken dominion over this planet. Clearly there is something that separates us from other mammals, to a certain extent. That is beautifully described through the idea of these forbidden fruits. And that’s interesting, the idea that the difference between good and evil is halfway to immortality. I just think they’re interesting metaphors. T


. There’s something about [the] wickedness—and that violence and the ability to do what we have done—that, for me, is such a clear, ecological message in Genesis. The first thing Adam is told is to tend and to keep the garden, in Genesis 2:15.

Then Genesis 6 talks about how we’ve filled the world with violence. [You can connect] that to what’s going on right now, with the knowledge that we’re living our second chance and yet, no matter where you stand on the spectrum, we all know the water is coming.

The irony is crazy, and not to take responsibility for creation when we’re this far up the river without a paddle—that’s why I welcome Pope Francis in his first sermon talking about how we are all stewards of creation. And now, it seems like he’s making a big part of his ministry about that—it’s really exciting. You have the Dalai Lama out there but there are really few voices [speaking up] …Obama made a great speech after the Deep Horizon tragedy. That was appropriate but still nothing is really happening. We are just so out of balance.

For me, there’s a big discussion about dominion and stewardship. There’s this contradiction [between the two], some would say, in the Bible, but it doesn’t have to be a contradiction. It can work together. The thing is, we have clearly taken dominion over the planet. We’ve fulfilled that. But have we been good stewards?

Leviticus, also in the Bible, talks about how every seventh year we’re supposed to give the land a rest. When’s the last time our land has gotten a rest? We’re way overdue for that jubilee. And I think that’s what I want. That’s why I made the film. For that reason.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/03/the-terror-of-em-noah-em-how-darren-aronofsky-interprets-the-bible/359587/

From TIME Magzine:

Quote :

The God of Noah: Great, but Not Always Good
March 30, 2014
A movie that reminds us of the difficult, often perplexing nature of the Bible

“And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
— The Book of Genesis

As any even remotely careful reader knows, the Bible is a hard book, one that tends to raise as many questions as it answers. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures can be as capricious in his way as any of the gods of the ancient world; later, the God of the New Testament, in offering a means of salvation, does so only through the brutally violent execution of his own son. To engage with the biblical, then, is to engage with texts that are not historical in the ordinary sense of the term. Largely written to convince and convert, the Bible is a special kind of literary country. As the author of the Gospel of John said of his own work, “These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” Understanding the stories of Scripture requires what British poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge once called a “willing suspension of disbelief” — a suspension that in turn creates what Coleridge thought of as “poetic faith.”

I thought of Coleridge this weekend as I watched the new No. 1 movie in America, Noah, starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson. The movie has been predictably reviewed both as a dramatic enterprise (as a kind of latter-day Cecil B. DeMille film with CGI effects) and as a 21st century environmental fable (the world was destroyed by the “Creator” because of strip-mining, clear-cutting and gluttony). There have been point-by-point fact-checks between the film and the relevant chapters of Genesis. And there have been the expected criticisms from some religious groups about the movie’s preference for action sequences over theological reflection.

To me, the movie is a useful reminder of the difficult, often perplexing nature of the Bible itself. The Noah story is strange to us; the Flood in Genesis is one of the reasons I dislike the childhood mealtime blessing, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.” Yes, God is great, but he is not always good, for, in the Noah example, are we to really believe that everyone on earth except Noah’s family had to die? In terms of the narrative, God seems overly harsh, which even he may have realized, for by the time of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, he would at least spare the inhabitants of the world that he chose to bring into being from a sudden death by drowning.

The Noah story is not unique in ancient literature. From the Sumerian creation story to The Epic of Gilgamesh, flood myths were common in Near Eastern culture and cosmology. Given the arbitrary, violent and chaotic nature of life in premodern times, the emergence of folk tales that ascribed supernatural significance to natural disasters is totally understandable. Here’s the thing, though: life in our own age is also arbitrary, violent and chaotic. Most of us dislike acknowledging that things lie outside our control; the whole story of the postscientific revolution, post-Enlightenment world has been the steady acceptance of the expectation that the unknown is knowable and the unmanageable manageable.

The Noah story is a rebuke to such certitude. The Flood and the arbitrary nature of a divine mandate to begin the world over again through mass drownings are of a piece with the tragic failings of a fallen world — the violent takeover of nation by nation, the disappearance of a huge airliner, the death of an innocent. The point of the Noah tale is that at any moment, forces beyond our control will upend everything we think we know about life. If there is a philosophical core to the new Noah movie, I think it can be found in a single line of dialogue from Crowe’s biblical patriarch, who, realizing the duty that has fallen on him, says, “The storm cannot be stopped, but it can be survived.”


In a way, that tragic acceptance of reality imbued with a sense of ultimate hope is an essential element of monotheistic theology. For those who choose the consolations of faith — and as the Noah story shows, faith surely comes with challenges — the tragic is ultimately leavened by hope. After the rain comes the rainbow; after the Cross the Crown. Part of us wants to cry out, wanting to know why the rain, why the Cross, and that crying out — the why with the hand uplifted to the heavens — is as inescapable an element of life as rain, and as death. Noah survived; all the rest of us can hope is that perhaps, in the fullness of time, we shall too.

alj wrote:

From TIME Magzine:

Quote :

The God of Noah: Great, but Not Always Good
March 30, 2014
A movie that reminds us of the difficult, often perplexing nature of the Bible

“And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
— The Book of Genesis

As any even remotely careful reader knows, the Bible is a hard book, one that tends to raise as many questions as it answers. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures can be as capricious in his way as any of the gods of the ancient world; later, the God of the New Testament, in offering a means of salvation, does so only through the brutally violent execution of his own son. To engage with the biblical, then, is to engage with texts that are not historical in the ordinary sense of the term. Largely written to convince and convert, the Bible is a special kind of literary country. As the author of the Gospel of John said of his own work, “These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” Understanding the stories of Scripture requires what British poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge once called a “willing suspension of disbelief” — a suspension that in turn creates what Coleridge thought of as “poetic faith.”

I thought of Coleridge this weekend as I watched the new No. 1 movie in America, Noah, starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson. The movie has been predictably reviewed both as a dramatic enterprise (as a kind of latter-day Cecil B. DeMille film with CGI effects) and as a 21st century environmental fable (the world was destroyed by the “Creator” because of strip-mining, clear-cutting and gluttony). There have been point-by-point fact-checks between the film and the relevant chapters of Genesis. And there have been the expected criticisms from some religious groups about the movie’s preference for action sequences over theological reflection.

To me, the movie is a useful reminder of the difficult, often perplexing nature of the Bible itself. The Noah story is strange to us; the Flood in Genesis is one of the reasons I dislike the childhood mealtime blessing, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.” Yes, God is great, but he is not always good, for, in the Noah example, are we to really believe that everyone on earth except Noah’s family had to die? In terms of the narrative, God seems overly harsh, which even he may have realized, for by the time of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, he would at least spare the inhabitants of the world that he chose to bring into being from a sudden death by drowning.

The Noah story is not unique in ancient literature. From the Sumerian creation story to The Epic of Gilgamesh, flood myths were common in Near Eastern culture and cosmology. Given the arbitrary, violent and chaotic nature of life in premodern times, the emergence of folk tales that ascribed supernatural significance to natural disasters is totally understandable. Here’s the thing, though: life in our own age is also arbitrary, violent and chaotic. Most of us dislike acknowledging that things lie outside our control; the whole story of the postscientific revolution, post-Enlightenment world has been the steady acceptance of the expectation that the unknown is knowable and the unmanageable manageable.

The Noah story is a rebuke to such certitude. The Flood and the arbitrary nature of a divine mandate to begin the world over again through mass drownings are of a piece with the tragic failings of a fallen world — the violent takeover of nation by nation, the disappearance of a huge airliner, the death of an innocent. The point of the Noah tale is that at any moment, forces beyond our control will upend everything we think we know about life. If there is a philosophical core to the new Noah movie, I think it can be found in a single line of dialogue from Crowe’s biblical patriarch, who, realizing the duty that has fallen on him, says, “The storm cannot be stopped, but it can be survived.”


In a way, that tragic acceptance of reality imbued with a sense of ultimate hope is an essential element of monotheistic theology. For those who choose the consolations of faith — and as the Noah story shows, faith surely comes with challenges — the tragic is ultimately leavened by hope. After the rain comes the rainbow; after the Cross the Crown. Part of us wants to cry out, wanting to know why the rain, why the Cross, and that crying out — the why with the hand uplifted to the heavens — is as inescapable an element of life as rain, and as death. Noah survived; all the rest of us can hope is that perhaps, in the fullness of time, we shall too.

The man should have read the Bible before he wrote this.

Domenic wrote:

The man should have read the Bible before he wrote this.

He did. Reread the article.

I am curious to know why Glen Beck is referred to as a Creationist? He is a Mormon. Are they the same thing? I have been a Mormon most of my life and have yet to be referred to as a Creationist. I just find the reference interesting.

Charlie, stay the way you are.  You're a good person. Titles don't define a real person.

As for the subject of Noah, I haven't seen the movie, however with all the talk about it, I want to see it.  Since it most likely won't be shown where I live, perhaps I can get a DVD and see it.

As a child, I found the story of Noah as taught in Sunday school, hard to believe.  Two of every kind of animal going into the Ark?  In my young mind, I couldn't imagine how they would all fit given the size of the Ark. And then there was the food to be considered, of course God would proivide.  What about the Shit from all the animals?  Was it beamed somewhere?  There were too many incredible things about it that caused me to disbelieve the story.  The other factor, as Ann points out, is a God that would punish his own creation.  We read that "God is Love".  Doesn't sound like love to me, of course back then the word "Love" may have had a different meaning.

Domenic points out that religion is changing and the new Pope certalnly gives credence to that.  Today we know that much of religious philosophy was a means of  control.  The fear of going to Hell was/is a biggie.  I find the Bible a most interesting book and believe fact is mixed with fiction.  It is possible that Scribes used what we call today, "literary license".  Today we have books called "Historical Fiction" and they bring history alive. 
If we are to say that the Old Testament is not Christianity since Christ did away with much of what is written in the Old Testament, then why do people continue to reference statements recorded in the Old Testament?  The Geneaology reference in the Old Testament is relevant, however we don't know how accuarate that is. 
The story of creation is most interesting and people who believe that story are called Creationists.  I don't see that as a negative to identify one's beliefs, however labels tend to demean.
I would like to be know as a Citizen of the World rather than a particular country.  What does that say about me?

I am glad to be known as a U.S. citizen with a mind and heart open to the universal bond of humanity.  I do not believe any one human is more or less valuable than another or that any particular culture is greater either.

I am having a bit of a problem.  Once again, I posted a message to a different thread that I thought I was posting here.  It may be due to the fact that I was working from my Kindle rather than from my PC.  I have shifted now.  I will not copy that second long post again, but you can find it here